


Light And Sound

by Ymas



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Best Friends, Epic Friendship, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 15:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14475393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ymas/pseuds/Ymas
Summary: Richard has another accident and Jeremy loses it a bit.Takes place in hospital after the Hemberg-accident.





	Light And Sound

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this shortly after Richard, as Jeremy would put it, 'decided to take a tumble down a hill in Switzerland'.  
> It’s a bit outdated now, as for the best part of a year I wasn’t sure if I should actually post it publicly.  
> But then I figured what the heck, someone might like it, so I probably should. So here it is. Just in time for the almost-one-year-anniversary.
> 
> It's gen. Just the closest friendship ever. Can be read as pre-slash, though, if wanted.
> 
> Edit: Damn, almost forgot: Never happened, of course. Just in case it was too convincing ;-)

„James. I’m ok.“ Richard stops James‘ attempts at straightening his blanket with a hand on his arm.  
“Ah… er yes. Sorry. I…”  
“James.” Richard holds him in place, waiting for James’ shifty gaze to finally meet his. He sighs, the easy joke he was going for dying on the tip of his tongue at the sight of James’ troubled eyes.  
“James. It’s alright. You’re allowed to fuss. You are also allowed to check as many times as you want, but maybe, just for a second, slow down and _know_ I am ok.”

James stills. Their eyes lock. Thirty seconds. One minute.  
James’ breathing is shallow.  
Richard isn’t even sure if he himself is breathing at all.  
A sudden, jerky movement and James has his forehead touching Richard’s and now Richard knows for sure he isn’t breathing anymore, instead rubbing tiny circles into James’ biceps. Trying to hold it together for both of them.  
When there is no sign of James ever wanting to let go again, Richard takes a chance. Exhaling slowly, he carefully pats James’ hair.  
And James lets him.  
Which is a tell-tale sign in and of itself. 

Eventually, after another minute or so, James pulls away, looking anywhere but at Richard. “I… uhm… tea, I think.” And with that, he all but flees from the room. 

Richard shakes his head and leans back, groaning a bit as he adjusts his position. His knee really hurts like a bitch. There is no reaction from Jeremy who’s standing over by the window, looking out over the hospital grounds.  
“Emotionally retarded twat”, Richard murmurs fondly, looking over to Jeremy for the familiar conspiratorial grin. Nothing. 

“Jez?” “Jezza.” … “Jeremy!” This, at least, has Jeremy turn around briefly, mumbling a distracted “Yeah. Yes, sure”, before turning back to the window. He’s alternatively cracking his knuckles and biting at the cuticles of his right thumb.  
Richard lets his head fall back into the pillows and sighs. “Bloody hell, I’ve landed myself in an emotional nightmare!”

After a moment, he tries again. “Jeremy, what’s up?” And then “Jez, would you come over here, maybe?”  
A minute shake of the head shows that Richard has at least been heard, but nothing more is forthcoming. 

Not being able to do anything more, least of all walking over to Jeremy, Richard resignedly picks up the bright yellow book James has left on his nightstand. It’s something to do with psychology, nothing Richard would read, but James, in full fussy mode, has decided Richard needs something to entertain him. And if it’s educational, all the better.  
Richard absentmindedly flicks through it, hardly even skimming the chapter titles.  
There is no sound except for the rustling of paper and, now and again, the cracking of Jeremy’s knuckles. 

It might have almost been peaceful.  
Except that it isn’t.  
It’s disturbing. 

Richard can count on one hand the occasions when Jeremy has been this quiet. After his mother had died. When his wife had to take the boy child to hospital for suspected appendicitis while the Top Gear crew was stuck in a jungle in South America. And possibly whenever Richard or James get hurt. But Richard can’t be sure about that, usually being the one on the receiving end of the getting hurt bit. 

He wonders where James is with the tea. Of course he knows tea has been mostly an excuse for getting out of the emotionally charged atmosphere, but he also knows that, whenever James leaves a room in distress, he will return with tea. 

 

_____

 

“You are light and sound.”

Jeremy has spoken quickly, quietly, turned towards the window and apropos of nothing at all. 

“Uh. I… What?”

Jeremy briefly looks at him but immediately turns back to the window. The skin around his thumbnail is already bleeding, but he keeps biting at it regardless. 

“Did you know that?” he insists almost gently, speaking to the window. “That you are the light and the sound?”

Richard runs the events of the day through his head again, fast-forwards to every conversation with Jeremy. He tries to follow, he really does. No success.  
“Mate, I’m sure I have no idea what you're on about.”

Jeremy nods. Then shakes his head and continues to bite his thumb. Flecks of skin are coming off.  
Richard physically aches to walk over, take that hand in his and save the digits from further damage.  
But right at the moment he can do nothing like that. 

He waits.  
Something has to give sooner or later. 

 

___

 

James walks back in with three styrofoam cups of tea and a plastic bag under his arm and for a second there, Richard inwardly curses his timing.  
But James is James and for all his emotional inhibitions and his clumsiness and his awkwardness, he is very perceptive whenever it counts and picks up immediately on the heavy atmosphere.  
He quietly shuts the door, puts down the tea and sits in a chair in the corner near Richard’s bed. 

They wait.  
The only detectable sounds are those of Jeremy’s almost laboured breathing.  
Richard keeps his own as steady as he can and prays for the nurses to not disturb them for just a little bit longer….

“I… when you… when I thought you were dead…” even though Jeremy speaks haltingly, lowly, addressing the window, Richard startles, jostling his knee.  
He bites fiercely down on the pain, knowing that at this stage, any sound might spook Jeremy out of talking. 

He shoots a quick look at James who looks worried and exhausted himself and suddenly it occurs to Richard that James probably knows this, probably has seen Jeremy like this before and Richard having been the cause then, too, and his heart breaks a little for both of them. 

Jeremy takes a breath and swallows. Then, in a rush: “When I thought you were dead, it was gone. All the light and the colours. Everything just turned grey. And all the sound was gone too. Just… nothing. Just… like the old movies. Black. And White. And Grey. And no sound. You turned it off. Did you… Did you know you could do that??”

He turns back to Richard with a confused expression, eyes somewhat unfocused, but looking for all the world as if he’s actually waiting for an answer. 

With a sudden jolt Richard realises that probably both his friends have been, or still are, in shock. And no one has actually bothered to check them over. Or maybe, as he knows them, they probably wouldn’t let themselves be checked over.

The marshal who had helped him away from the burning car had told Richard that, from the outside, it had looked bad. Like, really, hair-raisingly, bad.  
Given the fact that he’d crawled out by himself and relatively unscathed, though, Richard might have underestimated the impact on any eye-witnesses. Colossally. 

The realisation takes his breath away and makes his eyes sting. 

“Jeremy, come here”, is all he can muster, although he has no idea how to carry on from that. 

Jeremy turns back to the window.  
“No, I’m fine.” He goes back to biting the skin off his thumb. “I just want to know how you did that.”

There is now blood on his lips and abruptly James gets up and crosses the room to stand beside him. Jeremy watches him wearily, as he indicates Richard’s bed with a jerk of his head. He looks over again but doesn’t move.  
“Twat” James mutters affectionately and, with a gentle hand on his arm, urges Jeremy over towards the bed.  
Jeremy goes with him reluctantly, until James deposits him on the edge of the bed, next to Richard.  
Richard manages to quickly squeeze his elbow in thanks before James hastily retreats back into his corner, grabbing one of the cups of tea on the way. 

Finally Richard is able to reach (just) and before Jeremy can do any more damage to his hand, Richard rescues it by taking it in his own. Jeremy looks slightly startled and mightily confused, but lets Richard have it. 

 

______

 

“Jeremy, look, really, I’m ok”, Richard repeats himself once again, at a complete loss in the face of a shell-shocked Jeremy Clarkson. “I hardly even have a headache.”

Jeremy’s eyes snap to Richards face and he almost manages to pull his hand away. “You have a headache??” 

Richard squeezes the hand he’s only just managed to keep a hold of. “No, I’m absolutely, totally fine. Look, shall we call a nurse maybe? Have her give you something?”

Jeremy still looks a bit alarmed but also mostly confused and Richard is seconds away from pushing the button when James reaches over from the other side of the bed and nudges a cup of tea into Richard’s hand. 

Richard almost laughs. It’s so James. Tea as the solution to everything, even if it comes lukewarm and in a plastic cup… but then the smell hits him and he looks incredulously over at James. James grins back slyly, topping the other two tea cups up before hiding the bottle of gin under the bed. 

It makes Richard laugh out loud and, after a moment, James joins in with a raspy chuckle. 

Only Jeremy is still sitting on the bed, looking like he has no idea how he got there and what on earth is going on. 

Richard pushes the tea cup at him, still keeping a firm hold on his damaged hand.  
After hesitating for a beat, Jeremy takes it. Even his good hand is trembling but he manages a sip without spilling, while James deals out a cup each for himself and Richard. 

It tastes unfathomably vile. Cold, grayish-brown vending machine tea, topped up with cheap gin and made worse by the fact that James has gone noticeably easy on the gin in Richard’s cup.  
Plus, Richard is holding Jeremy’s hand.  
Richard can’t stop giggling at the absurdity of the situation which, combined with the ebbing of adrenaline and the relief of yet another survival story lived to tell makes him lightheaded and giddy. And James is right there with him, the bouts of his laughter getting louder and less controlled by the second. 

The familiarity of it all, the drinking together, the ludicrousness, the laughter and Richard’s good-natured energy, visibly calms Jeremy down and, after a generous second helping of only gin this time, he joins in shakily, even directing a “you lucky sod”, in Richard’s general direction. 

He doesn’t let go of Richard’s hand, though. 

 

________________________________________________________________________________

 

The nurse who enters the room an hour or so later, finds them huddled close together, Jeremy literally _in_ bed with Richard, all three nursing cups of something that looks like tea but smells like something else entirely and happily plotting something that seems to be called ‘The-I’m-Not-Dead-Post’.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I'm allowed to link it, but you can easily find the 'I'm-Not-Dead-Post' on Richard's DriveTribe.  
> Or by googling.


End file.
